Tuesday, August 29, 2006

I tried to make the seamless sweater from, you guessed it, Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet, my favorite and only crochet book.

After Lu Mei and Lindsey had watched me unravel the first few rows of my new sweater several times over the course of several episodes of Weeds, they were feeling its pain. I, on the other hand, custom to the inevitable countless frogging that comes with knitting, especially at my level, didn't really notice until they pointed it out.

That was on Friday night. Then, on Saturday, I took Septa and New Jersey Transit to New York to meet some potential future roommates. I brought LSAT homework and a book for the ride. I also took my crocheting. I had planned to spend most of the time studying, but instead I spent the entire time on that sweater. I got really far. That's one of the things I love about crocheting; with the exception of sc, it's so quick! And it's just as relaxing as knitting. The problem with this project was that some time between Newark and Princeton Junction I realized that I had wrongly interperated the directions. I don't know why it took me so long to realize that what I was making looked very different from the picture. But the great thing about crocheting is that anything goes; it looks like I intentially made it like this. So I'm going to finish it and then some time in the future I will follow it for real, but I can totally wear this. The only problem is that on Sunday, after I took these pictures and added the waste section (done actually according to the pattern!) I tried this on. And I think I might have started it too tight, because I don't know how well the bottom will go around my hips. I guess we'll soon find out.

Sunday, August 20, 2006

On the Needles...I'm starting to get some use out of this new digital camera. Excuse my floor as the background, I'll have to find something classier.

This is my first lace project. It's a scarf, but the idea was to wear it in my hair. I'm making it out of cotton instead of laceweight wool. I'm almost done, but it's taking me forever to finish. At first it was captivating but now I'm getting really bored with it.

And I just finished this. I crocheted it for my sister's birthday (Sept. 5th). I crocheted it, based on the Anarchy Irony Hat from "Stitch 'N Bitch Crochet: the Happy Hooker." I used the same yarn as I did for a scarf that I made for her a year ago, so now they match. I was going to have just the last row in blue, but I ran out of purple. The great thing about crocheting is that it's really hard to see mistakes and easy to make changes. I'm modelling the hat because my sister doesn't yet have it to take a pictue.

I wrote my senior thesis in anthropology last year on knitting. Unlike most college seniors, as I progressed more on my thesis, I became increasingly OBSESSED with my topic, knitting. I focused largely on the internet as a means of communication amongst knitters and as I researched and wrote, I just itched to start my own knitting blog. But alas, I thought that perhaps starting the blog during this research would be counterproductive in two ways. (1) it would probably taint my research because I was working (and knitting) with multiple groups and (2) because it would add to the list of knitting-related distractions that was keeping me from finishing the thesis which, after all, was needed for me to, well, graduate.

Well I finally finished my thesis! And I finally graduated! AND I'm moving to New York next month which means that I'm going to be seeing less of all my amazing knitting friends. So now I get to start this knitting blog AND keep in touch with my knitting friends.

I think this is going to turn into more of a fiber arts blog than a knitting blog per se, because this summer I also learned to crochet, and I've become a little obsessed with that too. (Notice any trends here? At least I'm consistant...)